Michael Bay Transformer films: A rant of sorts

To say the Michael Bay Transformer films are a bone of contention with in the fandom is putting it mildly. While some of the character designs were rather neat. The liberties taken with the property were bad at their mildest and vile at their worse. It brings about a mixed bag that can leave many fans scratching their heads wondering if they have any entertainment value. This first post is more of a general over view of the entire films as a whole and future posts might break down things per film. Spoilers are going to be common so sit back and enjoy the rant.

The general problem with the films that I have is how things played out. While Prime was for the most part Prime (thanks to Peter Cullen). The motivations of the Autobots and Decepticons were never fully clear cut in the start. G1 was mainly about finding engeron and supplies to bring back Cybertron to the golden age. However the McGuffin of the first film. "The Allspark" became a bit of a problem that shadowed the rest of the films.

Over all Bay put more of a focus on his human characters and Sam of the group seemed to be the most annoying. To the point you almost wished Megatron had stepped on him in the first film. With the two further entries he just got more on the nerves. He was never a serious contender to begin with. But became more of a goof ball later on. Which is one of the biggest flaws of the entire series. For a film series about Transforming Robots. The film did not put much focus on them.

The other major flaws were the bots themselves. Bay did not really care for the lore or understanding of the role each one played. It was not uncommon for bots on both factions to meet grizzly ends with careless disregard. Jazz in the first film is, with out warning, ripped in half by Megatron in the final battle. In another film the Arcee Trio are taken out early on. Of course no one can forget Ironhide's epic death at the hands of Sentinel Prime. Bay even turns this into a plot point in the 4th film where much of the surviving Autobots from the first three films were slaughtered off screen. "To sell toys".

While their are some good moments in several of the films. It is oven over shadowed by some of the over all choices in the direction of the stories. That being said that Dark of the Moon is probably the best of the films while Revenge of the Fallen is a hot steaming pile of what is left from Galvatron's remains. I think further posts will dive into these films and bring out the complaints and highlight why I'm glad the Bumblebee is not a Bay film.

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I don't think I could have put this any better. Your points are some of the many reasons why I don't simply care about those films and find them unappealing. I admit some of my disdain comes from growing up with G1 in the 80s and refusing to take off my rose tinted glasses, but even if I did take them off I'd promptly put them back on in disgust.